When watching live television, users often are tempted to flip between two channels due to a desire to avoid watching commercials or out of boredom. In such instances, the user typically switches from a primary program to a secondary program when a commercial or uninteresting passage appears in the playback of the primary program. The user then typically toggles back and forth between the secondary program and the primary program until the user has discerned that the commercial break or uninteresting passage has ended for the primary program, at which point the user resumes the uninterrupted playback of the primary program.
This toggling approach has at least two drawbacks. One, the user often does not timely realize that the commercial break or uninteresting passage in the primary program has already ended and thus misses a portion of the primary program immediately following the end of the commercial break or uninteresting passage. Two, the user's attention to the secondary program is interrupted by the frequent flipping back to the primary program to check the status of the primary program, thereby preventing the user from even temporarily enjoying the secondary program. These problems are exacerbated by the relatively long “tuning” time needed to switch the television tuner from one digital channel to another digital channel.
A known solution is the use of picture-in-picture (PIP) to watch both the primary program and the secondary program simultaneously. However, this approach is problematic, because displaying two programs simultaneously can be distracting and the secondary picture may obscure some important display content of the primary picture.